How Both Parties Were Stung by Disappearance of Growth Fairy

We’re told by people who are paid to know such things that there are vanishingly few undecided voters in this election cycle — and that such undecided voters as do exist are more likely than not to be white baby boomers who live in the Midwest and are unaffiliated with either major party. They are self-described moderates, and they’re decidedly pessimistic about the trajectory of the economy.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of one of these voters as he (or she) takes in the primetime speeches at both national conventions.

Last week the Republicans told him that President Obama has racked up an unprecedented amount of debt and failed to produce the kind of economic recovery he promised four years ago. More specifically, GOP governors like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and New Jersey’s Chris Christie told him, with no small amount of pride, that they had balanced their states’ budgets, and brought their public-sector employees to heel.

You can see how this pitch would make intuitive sense to a swing voter. Obama = out-of-control spending and debt = weak recovery. Republicans = tough talkers who get their fiscal houses in order.

This week, Democrats began making the case to this hypothetical moderate Midwestern baby boomer that, Look: You lived through the Bush years. How’d that work out for you? Now they’re promising to do the same — tax cuts for the rich again, howimaginative! — and expecting different results.

Again, imagine this voter’s wheels’ spinning: The Bush years were lousy, sure, but, jeez — that’s an awful lot of debt, and things don’t seem to be getting any better now. So…

I can’t predict with high confidence how this small but vitally important cohort of voters is going to break in November. But I think I can locate the root of their indecision, the reason they might find both parties’ core messages to be at least somewhat persuasive: Over the last decade, the entire political class, at both the federal and state levels, banked on economic growth that never materialized and on wealth that eventually vanished.

The Republicans, under President Bush, cut income taxes, prosecuted two foreign wars, and expanded Medicare without giving much thought as to how they’d pay for it all in the long run. The Dow 36,000 mentality, even as it was almost immediately discredited by the dot-com crash, prevailed. We still were headed to the sunny uplands of the “Ownership Society,” where home values would continually increase, world without end.

The memory of the failures of Bush fiscal policy is fresh in the minds of all but the most dedicated conservative ideologue. Yet at the state level it’s been Republicans like Walker and Christie who have ridden their way to national fame by confronting Democratic legislators and their public-sector constituencies.

This is an impressionistic sketch at best, but I think at the heart of Indecision 2012 is this wavering verdict: The Republicans screwed up badly, but it’s possible they’re the ones who can fix the mess.

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6 Responses to How Both Parties Were Stung by Disappearance of Growth Fairy

The Republicans screwed up badly, but it’s possible they’re the ones who can fix the mess

Yes, Scott and it is possible that pigs may also fly someday, but i won’t hold my breath waiting for it.

Ok, that might be unfair. Let’s say it this way. The current crop of Republicans, who at or near the top of the ballot, both nationally and regionally are for the most part indistinguishable from the Democratic rivals on most issues, especially the economy and war, and are more likely to either prolong the or accelerate the current economic slide.

If you want real change from the Republicans, you will first need to find some new Republicans, who might actually live up to all of the small government clap-trap that they often repeat. And don’t expect it from the majority of the so-called Tea Party candidates, they are often just extreme social conservative versions of the Romney style of economics and foreign policy.

So, I am back to the original sentiment. Yes they can fix is and pigs might fly some day.

I agree with Bob Jones above. We need new Republicans. New Democrats too, come to that.

The Tea Party approach, scattershot as it may be, offers the only prospect of real change. Keep firing the obvious liars, incompetents and idiots long enough and we’ll eventually identify enough keepers to effectively govern the republic.

I doubt these sorts of people are that much concerned about the national debt. That’s a Beltway Issue. What they care about are their own debts– and how they going to pay next months rent or mortgage payment. I agree that neither party is speaking to them, and that both hoped for economic growth to pull their wagons out of the muck, but it also seems oddly out of touch to imagine these folks fretting about abstract issues when their own lives are what concern them most.

When are people going to realize that politicians and governments do not “RUN” Economies. Maybe in the old Soviet Union but you can see where that landed up. Substituting Republicans for Democrats or visa-verse is meaningless. The search for the right “leadership” is meaningless. 90% of the functions of what the Government does in America shouldn’t even exist. That things like Health Care,Retirement Programs,Education,Housing and a myriad of other governmental functions plus the concept of Pax Americana should either be phased out or be handed over to private enterprise or dismantled. The more Central Planning,the more interference in the economic life of the average American,the worse things are. People must realize that government in America is by and large a criminal activity. That government’s functions should be strictly limited to protecting the Rights and Property of the citizens living within the jurisdiction of the Nation State plus protect against foreign invaders. That America,that was created as a limited Constitutional Republic,has gone down the road that has destroyed every single nation state in history. That is the road of Empire and Welfare. The warnings of the past about letting the government genie out of the bottle have been either ignored or forgotten. In the end it will be the destruction of the American Republic and its substitution with a police state. Its happened over and over again throughout history and now is happening today to America. Be warned.

JonF, I agree that ordinary voters don’t obsess over abstract issues like the national debt. But Republicans talked a lot about it at their convention — and the point of the post was to imagine how undecided viewers might react it.

And Bob: I’m not claiming that Republicans are the ones to fix the mess. Again, I’m imagining how a moderate swing voter might approach the choice between Obama and Romney.